A quick scan of the yard dashed those hopes.
“It’s a dock,” David whispered, pointing toward the river’s edge. “There’s a boat ramp.”
“A fat lot of good it’ll do us without a boat,” Kelly added.
“Why can’t we catch a break?” David said.
It wasn’t fair. They’d survived almost four months of chaos, shortages, attacks, death and radiation, only to be stranded, 80 miles from potential freedom. They had to find a way.
“Look, they have to fix boats here. Let’s see if there’s anything left in these buildings that we can use to repair the water tank and float away,” said Kelly, even though the thought of getting back into the HMS Gazebo was the last thing she wanted.
“Dave, you look through this building, I’ll go next door. And please be careful.”
“Alright. You too. We might not be alone.”
David hobbled around the office, collecting anything he could find which looters had ignored, picking up some fishing line and a reel which sat on the floor. Kelly, meanwhile, slinked into the building joined to theirs. It was Kelly’s immediate return which surprised him, her face looking like she’d seen a ghost, or worse. David tightened his shoulders, suddenly fearful.
“Come with me,” she said.
David complied, with both of them creeping closer to the adjacent building, shards of glass crunching underfoot. Kelly led David past the looted shopfront and through the large open door of the building’s workshop, her turning around to read David’s expression. He paused in the doorway, his eyes focused intently on what they had sitting before them. It was a combination of intoxicated joy, followed by a dose of reality crashing and burning before them. Kelly turned to David, her eyebrows raised in anticipation, but reading David’s face caused her brow to come crashing down, much like the damaged sailboat which sat on the workshop floor before them. Turning his gaze between the patchy red and white hull and his wife's eyes, He shook his head a little.
“Maybe we can fix it,” Kelly said. “If we can, it’ll be safer than the tank.”
David stared the the mess before him. The little sailboat appeared to have been in for major repairs, but had no mast and lay on its side. It was no better than their plastic tank.
“But… It’s broken,” David whispered. “I mean, look. It’s on the ground.”
David pointed to blocks of wood, strewn around the base of the unpainted hull.
“Someone’s already tried to steal it. Look,” he continued, pointing to the blocks. “It’s on the ground and there’s no way we can move it without a trailer and some way to lift it. It’s gotta weigh a ton. It… It looks like shit.”
Perhaps the optimist out of the two, Kelly wasn’t ready to raise the white flag just yet.
“Maybe we can make a mast and a sail?”
David exhaled through his nose, a look of pain on his face as a breeze blew some leaves into the workshop. They’d come so far, he thought. Maybe there’s another boat?
The good news was that they were alone, at least in their immediate area. The small group of businesses by the water’s edge were all related to boat repair and fishing, with nothing of any value left by looters and little cause for anyone to return. The bad news was that there was little in the way of materials left to repair their tank in order to continue floating down the Appomattox River. David wanted to repair the hole in their water tank, something that could be done in minutes with a piece of finely-carved cork and duct tape, whereas Kelly wanted to try and get the de-masted sailboat somehow fixed, onto a trailer and into the water, something that could take weeks, if at all.
“But we could be out of here in twenty minutes if we just fix the tank,” David pleaded.
“David. That thing will kill us both. Besides, do you think we’re gonna find a better boat in Norfolk, further down the river? When - if - we get that far alive, I do not want to be stopping. It’ll be too dangerous. If this boat floats, we can sail right past and out to sea.”
David put one hand on his hip and pointed the other hand at the sailboat.
“Sail right past? Without a sail? There’s no mast.”
Kelly knew he was right, but there’s no way she was getting back in that damn plastic bucket. She had an idea, which relied on her knowledge of David’s personality.
“OK. How about we compromise,” Kelly said, not asking.
David looked at her, dubiously.
“Compromise? Like, I take the tank and you take this piece of shit? Good luck lifting it up.”
“There’s no need to be a dick,” Kelly said.
“OK. Look. I'm sorry.” David replied, bowing and sweeping his arm, as if on stage. “Please. Tell me your great idea.”
Kelly exhaled. Did he have to be so dramatic?
“David, give me one day. We still have a couple of bottles of water. So, give me one day to try to fix this thing. If we can’t fix it in one day, we get back in the tub.”
David shook his head.
“Kelly, we’d need a week. And we need a sail. And ten people to lift it up.”
Kelly lifted her hands upright, index fingers raised, punctuating each word with hand movements.
“Just. One. Day.”
Kelly’s strategy was simple. Like so many guys, David was often reluctant to do chores, but once he became involved in the task, he wouldn’t stop until it was done properly. Back when times were happier, he’d often put off cleaning the bathroom or dusting the house, but when he finally did, he’d end up pouring a good hour into it, not stopping until it was perfect. Attempting the same strategy with a broken sailboat was bold, but it might work.
“Alright. One day. But tomorrow, we get back in the tank and try to paddle toward Chesapeake to find a real boat. Christ, even a stolen bathtub would be more seaworthy than this piece of shit.”
The first step involved clearing out the workshop and figuring out if there was anything useful left behind by looters. Boxes and paper were strewn across the floor, piled up against the walls and old boat parts hung from the rafters above their heads. That’s where Kelly noticed something which looked suspiciously useful.
“David,” she said excitedly, pointing above them. “Look.”
David studied the mess of metal cables and wires.
“That… looks like a mast.”
This was too good to be true, to Kelly at least. David lowered his gaze to Kelly, then pointed to the sailboat carcass.
“But will it fit this thing?” he asked, skeptical.
Though, even he had to admit this was quite a find.
“Let’s find out. It might even be the mast for this actual boat. I mean, why else would it be stored up there?”
Kelly grabbed a ladder which lay on the floor, climbing up to retrieve the mystery mast.
“It looks like it has a sail attached to that bit that sticks out.”
“The boom,” said David, having sailed a few times as a kid. Kelly tugged at the mess of metal cables and slid it down onto the floor with the loud clang of metal on concrete.
“Jesus!” David said, reaching for his gun and hobbling to the edge of the workshop door. “Kel, please be careful.”
Fortunately, aside from their own clanging and movement, there seemed to be no signs of human activity in the bushes surrounding them.
Connecting the mast aside, the largest immediate problem they faced was getting the boat upright and onto a trailer. For this, David came up with a plan. He limped over to a smashed-up RAM 1500, abandoned in the parking lot, and rummaged through it, returning triumphant with the truck’s jack and handle.
“Kel, look what I found. I’m gonna try to lift the boat up, one block at a time. It’ll take a while, but I reckon we can do it.”
This news made Kelly smile, knowing that her initial plan was working and her hunch was correct. All she had to do was convince him to get involved and he’d put in whatever effort was needed to complete the operation. She’d tell him about her little con-job in the
future, if they could get out of there, and if they weren’t going to die of cancer in a week, caused by radiation exposure.
David began turning the jack against a series of blocks and planks to right the hull, inch by inch. It was slow going, but progress was being made. Kelly, meanwhile, was untangling the wires attached to the mast, spreading them out on the workshop floor, determining where on the boat they attached. At the risk of raising her hopes, she allowed herself to enjoy the feeling that this might just work - aware that she’d made such mistakes before.
“Kel,” said David. “I can’t do it myself, having been shot and all, but can you bring over that boat trailer sitting across the lot?”
She rolled her eyes. It’s already begun, she thought.
Checking the coast was clear, Kelly pushed the trailer by its hitch across the lot and into the workshop, the trailers rear edge sitting against the bow of the boat. David was making good progress on righting the vessel, but how they were to get it aboard the trailer was another problem. The solution happened to be messy and not particularly environmentally friendly: paint. Opening one of the many cans of marine paint ignored by looters, David poured a messy line of paint in the middle of the floor, which would allow the boat’s small, retracted keel to slide on the ground somewhat. With the vessel mostly upright, he attached the cable connected to the trailer’s hand-operated winch to the bow, hoping to bring this discarded piece of flotsam back to life. The next idea, courtesy of Kelly, was to attach the front of the boat to the rafters above them via a pulley, helping to lift it into the trailer in an upright position, but also creating the risk of it pulling the roof down onto their heads.
Heaving, David turned the winch handle with the cable becoming tighter, resulting in the boat’s hull making a couple of dry cracking sounds.
“That can’t be good,” David announced, the handle now refusing to move under the strain.
“Turn it!” Kelly said, pulling on the rope which ran between a ceiling beam and the boat’s front anchor guide.
The roof frame above them creaked under the strain. David managed to turn the handle another half turn, the bow of the small sailboat finally beginning to climb onto the trailer. Kelly was now acutely aware as to why the looters gave up on this particular challenge. As the boat’s patchy-colored hull met the trailer’s side rollers and inched upward, Kelly began to loosen the pulley above her head, allowing the craft to put the majority of the strain on the trailer's rollers instead of the roof beams. It was only a few more turns of the winch to victory, and David, damp and frozen, began to smile. That was the first time Kelly had seen him smile since they found the plastic water tank and set sail to uncertainty. The winding of the winch came to a halt.
“Fucking well done!” Kelly said.
David nodded, wearing a broad grin. This was teamwork, though it was also the realization of more work to be done. Kelly climbed aboard the boat and sat at the tiller on the stern, suddenly aware of how small it was.
“This thing must only be about twenty-five feet long.”
“Yeah, it’s just a trailer sailer,” answered David. “But it’s like a hotel compared to the plastic bucket we rode in on.”
David stepped back, putting weight on his leg, causing him to wince. He stared at the white hull with pink and red repair patches, sitting on the trailer before them.
“This thing really to sticks out like a sore thumb. We’re gonna be shot dead before we even get it in the water.”
“Hang on,” Kelly said, an idea forming in her mind. “All that paint. That paint you poured on the ground. That was black. Let’s paint the damn thing black!”
Actually, David thought. That was a brilliant idea. There was plenty of paint and it didn’t have to pretty. He decided to go one step further.
“Let’s do that, and while we’re at it, let’s paint our white hazmat suits black too. That make us impossible to see at night.”
Kelly nodded. That wasn’t a bad idea either, she thought.
By the time the day had begun to transform into evening, David and Kelly had managed to attach the mast, which they discovered was designed to be removed easily to transport it under bridges, and they’d painted the entire craft black, from top to bottom, including the sail, the four small windows, and themselves. Of course it was the absolute worst time to paint a boat, with the air hovering just above freezing, which meant the paint remained sticky and wet, getting everywhere, but they had to put the boat in the water that night.
The cramped interior of the boat had been stripped of anything of value. It still had its seat cushions, but its gas small cooker had been ripped out, leaving a rectangular stainless steel hole. There was a small gas-powered outboard motor in the corner of the workshop too, but there was no fuel anywhere to be seen and its basic circuitry was possibly fried from the EMP attack some months before. David hauled it aboard anyway, along with firewood and anything else he could find, and returned to the abandoned truck in the parking lot. He removed the large battery from its engine bay, also climbing underneath to put a hole in its gas tank. Twenty seconds later he'd climbed back out, hobbling to the boat sitting outside the workshop on its trailer, disheartened.
“Fuck's sake.”
“What is it, Dave?”
“Someone's already punctured the tank. It's dry.”
Someone had beat him to the gas tank idea, with the truck sitting empty in the lot. Kelly paused for a moment and had another plan.
“What about taking its starter motor?”
“For what?” David asked.
“That.”
Kelly pointed to the outboard motor sitting on the workshop floor. She was right. That was a smart idea, if it worked.
With the sun down and the sky nothing but a sheet of dark gray, they loaded their bags into the cabin of the sticky, black sailboat, and dragged the trailer across the lot, stopping at the edge of the boat ramp.
“Ready?” Kelly whispered, sitting in the cockpit, the black, sticky sail hanging off the boat's mast and her painted hazmat barely visible in the evening darkness.
“Ready,” David answered.
He climbed up the trailer and aboard the small craft, his black suit leg adhering to the sticky, black cabin wall. David got himself into position at the tiller, not that he would have much control over the vessel. They certainly couldn’t sail at night without seeing where they were going; at best, they could continue floating downstream until they reached the James River, some six miles away. If they somehow made it that far, then they’d take whatever came next, head-on.
Kelly climbed back down onto the tarmac and pushed hard against the back of the trailer, feeling it start to move. She aimed the trailer toward the boat ramp and pushed with all her might. As the metal trailer reached the top of the boat ramp, its speed began to increase quickly, and the trailer soon slipped out of her grasp. She reached for it, but it wasn’t there anymore, causing her to lose balance and trip over on the ramp. Kelly fell to her knees, looking up as it continued on without her into the darkness. She inadvertently held her breath during those next three seconds, with the rattling sound of a dark boat jiggling on a trailer immediately being replaced by the sound of a splashing water.
“David?” she whispered loudly.
“Kelly!” he whispered back.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I think it floats!” came the reply.
Kelly walked down the ramp until her shoes made a sloshing sound and her feet immediately turned cold.
“Where are you?” she called, her hands outstretched.
“Over here,” he whispered. “I’m still on the trailer but it's definitely floating.”
Striking the metal structure in front of her, which could only be the trailer, Kelly touched the back of the boat. The water was up to her knees, but the trailer was stopping the sailboat from being free. She positioned her legs apart and pushed hard against the trailer. It begrudgingly moved a few feet, followed by the front of the
trailer dipping down. Kelly grabbed the back of the boat and climbed up over the trailer as it submerged.
“The trailer's gone off the edge of the concrete ramp. We’re free!” she whispered.
David stood slightly, reaching out to grab her, with both of them hitting their heads on the boom.
“Ow,” Kelly said, sitting back down on the sticky cockpit seat.
“Yeah, better get used to that,” David replied.
They were moving once again - this time in an actual boat designed to move people on actual water. The taste of freedom was becoming palpable.
They’d drifted about twenty miles throughout the night, banging into the shore several times, taking turns in pushing themselves off the bank. This was a more difficult task than in the plastic tank, given the sheer weight of the sailboat, but the seat cushions and their foil blankets allowed them to take turns sleeping. This was a task made easier by being able to lie down; a luxury most people take for granted. By the time the blackness of the sky had begun to transform into a pale gray on the horizon, Kelly surmised that, if they hoisted the black sail and moved under the power of wind, they’d only have one more complete day of traveling before reaching the ocean. After that, who knows, but for now, they still had to fight to survive.
David opened the cockpit hatch and stuck his head out, looking up at Kelly.
“Hey,” he said. “Where’s your mask?”
“Hey yourself. I took it off. You sleep alright?”
“You know, actually I did. I’m still damp and I smell rancid, but I got a good couple of hours’ sleep. Got any idea where we are?”
“I reckon we’re about 60 or 70 miles from the sea. If we sailed, we could probably make that in a day or so, but, seeing as we can’t sail at night, it would mean sailing during the day.”
“Hm,” David responded. “That would mean sailing in daylight right past Norfolk.”
“Yes, but I have some good news.”
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